Tuesday, 27 April 2010

In the first week of August I will be teaching a week long workshop in Latvia for the International Summer School of Photography that includes 5 other workshop in a countryside location. The workshops are all at an incredible fee of €400 with a lot of places at the concessionary fee of €250. In this price is included workshop, accommodation and food!
This is only possible because the organisers devote their time for free and not for profit.
Applications here, fees here

Workshops & teachers

The purpose of the course is to use the camera to better define one’s inner psyche. In order to achieve this central goal various assignments will be given to the participating students that will enable them to interact between their inner world and the exterior one. The participants will be required to work in black and white (preferably film) to produce images that will extend their imagination. Daily assignments will be given and the students will be required to find locations and props that suit their particular visions.The workshop will be geared towards individuals that have had reasonable experience in black and white film photography and have some darkroom experience. Film will be developed after the assignments have been completed and silver prints produced. The works will then be evaluated and discussed by the teacher and other participants prior to the next assignment. In addition, the teacher will spend a significant amount of time discussing his work and his experiences as a master black and white photographer.

Requirements/technique: Analogue or digital camera, good knowledge of the technical camera aspects. Darkroom experience is necessary if you work on film. Please bring your portfolios.

Roger Ballen Born in New York in 1950, Roger Ballen has lived and worked in Johannesburg, South Africa for almost 30 years. A geologist by training, Ballen began to photograph the houses and townsfolk he met while looking for potential mining sites in the 1970s. Ballen’s thought-provoking photography is known for particular attention to detail. He is photographing human and animal subjects in complex, fictional scenes filled with symbolism. His images have been called by critics a powerful social statements that at the same time are disturbing psychological studies. Roger Ballen has received numerous prominent awards including Best Photographic Book 2001 at the PhotoEspana festival in Madrid and Photographer of the year at the inaugural Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles in France in 2002. His photographs have been exhibited at top venues around the world, including the Gagosian Gallery and MOMA in New York, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Roger Ballen has given lectures and workshops at the most remarkable photography events worldwide; he also runs a Roger Ballen Foundation dedicated to the advancement of education of photography in South Africa.

This workshop will look at the possibilities of creating „A sense of Place”. Contrary to public opinion the „tools” of photography are not exposure time and aperture, but the abilities of the photographer to capture the mood of a space or the sense of a person. Without those skills a photographer can’t create complex bodies of work. Participants will create images that will feature a personal perspective of looking at a chosen place in the vicinity of the area where the workshop is held.The question of “truth” will be an integral part of the debate in the workshop. Images might be manipulated on the computer as an extended darkroom tool. Unmanipulated images as well can look so strange, that we hardly believe in their authentic state. This will not be a workshop that teaches a technical side of manipulation; we will rather discuss the extended possibilities of the digital image making and the way it changes our perception of a photograph.

Requirements/technique: DSLR cameras are preferable. A good knowledge of computer photo-editing programmes is necessary. Previous research about the subject is at least recommended. How is a place being represented in contemporary photographic practice? How was it represented by painters? Two examples see here.

Peter Bialobrzeski was born in Wolfsburg, Germany, in 1961. He studied Politics and Sociology before he became a photographer for a local paper in his native Wolfsburg. Peter Bialobrzeski travelled extensively in Asia before he went back to College in Essen and London to do courses in Photography and Editorial design. After having worked as a photojournalist for almost 15 years and being published world wide, Peter started to focus more on Personal Projects. He interprets his work neither as documentary nor as art but defines it as Cultural Practice. In the last seven years he has published four books, XXXholy, NEONTIGERS, HEIMAT and very recently Lost in Transition. His work has been exhibited in Europe, USA, Asia, Africa Australia and New Zealand. He won numerous awards including the prestigious World Press Photo Award 2003 for his work about Asian Megacities. In 2002 Peter has been appointed as a Professor for photography at the University of the Arts in Bremen. He has been running workshops around the world. As a critic he regularly writes for Photo News and Freelens Magazin. Since 194, the reproduction rights of his work are handled by laif agency in Cologne. He is represented by Laurence Miller Gallery in New York and LA Galerie in Frankfurt/Germany.

True or false? The border between the two is neither static nor vertical. Our senses are taken by the products of a modern artillery, they mutate towards the world where nature moves away, replacing direct experience with experiences aided by technological progress. Reality becomes a large hypnotic magnifying glass which modifies our behavior and eats away our motivation… There where the real world is transformed into fiction, fiction takes the shape of reality… What is the borderline between true and false? The participants of the workshop will try to answer this question with means of photography. The workshop will provide a continuous space for creation, reflection and debate, as well as means to go deeper into questioning and research, take a stance, and commit to a personal direction for addressing the subject.
The workshop is a part of the project Vrai ou Faux? that unites several established European artists on the international scene and supports younger artists through a programme of workshops and residences. Some of the images from the workshop will be selected for the publication of the project and presented at a travelling photo-exhibition through Europe.Requirements/technique: There are no technical or other limitations for the participants who are free to use any analogical or digital medium. Please bring your portfolios.Veronique Bourgoin was born in 1964 in Marseille, France. Since her graduation from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts de Paris in 1992, she makes photographic research through painting, sculpture and experimental films, focusing on the interaction between the personal and the collective. In 1988, she moved to Montreuil, where in 1994 together her partner she founded Atelier Reflexe - a pedagogical initiative for creation and promotion of young photography through a programme of international workshops, exhibitions and publications. Since 2004 she has directed several international artistic projects financed by the EU: EX-IN (2004-2005), EU Women (2006-2008) and the new project True or False? that will take place in 2010 - 2011. The projects support the creation, education, edition and exhibiting of her personal and collective artistic works that are shown at international festivals. In the last decade, Veronique Bourgoin had numerous personal and collective exhibitions in various prominent locations around Europe and in the US, and took part in numerous festivals, such as NY Photo Festival 2008 and 2009, Paris-Photo 2009, etc.http://www.bourgoin.name

The focus of the workshop is on seeing a new beauty in the nature that has been in some ways changed by the human presence. The human is of course a natural being, but our deeds often tend to fight against the natural order of the nature. Changed by the humans into landscapes or scenes, the original state and harmony of nature do not work anymore.
Within the course we will study this phenomenon and try to find and see the new sort of beauty and harmony in the man-made (altered) landscapes. The course will be about accepting our world as it is and ourselves as parts of it, and, in particular, studying the new possibilities for beauty to surface from what generally might be understood as disruption or even destruction.
During the course we will take a closer look at the meanings and reasons behind the taken images as well as the image compositions. The course will also deal with the significance of having a large body of work to discuss the attempted artistic intentions and arrive to a coherent project.Requirements/technique: DSLR camera, or analogue with possibility of producing ready images during the course. Take along your portfolio or other earlier images for conversations and to build a coherent connection between the new and the existing images.Ville Lenkkeri was born in Oulu, Finland, in 1972. Permanently lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. He began studying film in Prague and also briefly in London before taking photography degrees at FAMU in Prague and later at the University of Art and Design (Taik) in Helsinki. Lenkkeri represents the Helsinki School of photography, which has succeeded in turning contemporary Finnish photography into an outstanding cultural export. The photographer’s refined way of playing with reality and fiction continually leads the viewer onto thin ice. His works have been exhibited internationally in venues such as Gallery Taik, Berlin; Kulturhuset, Stockholm; Point of View Gallery, New York, etc. In the last 5 years he has published two books - Reality in the Making, in 2006, and The Place of No Roads, in 2009.http://www.villelenkkeri.com

Photojournalism and Print Media
Teacher: Andrei Polikanov (Moscow, Russia)
The main idea of the workshop is to show the students that despite the substantial cuts in circulations and production budgets, print media is still one of the biggest bodies that sponsors and encourages serious photojournalism. There are alternative ways of sustaining and broadening the audience during the crisis in the editorial policy.
The programme includes lectures on how to define the essential principles, variety of means and different approaches in photo reportage production, as well as photo reportage screenings and practical assignments to the students. In addition to the individual assignments completed during the workshop, the students will develop practical skills in photo editing for print, online and other visual presentations on the basis of the Russian Reporter Magazine photo material. An introduction to the international print media classification, photo department structure and its duties will be given, as well as practical guidance on how to build ‘the dream team’ photographer + photo editor = fantasy or reality?Requirements/technique: Please take along your portfolios (preferably digital, width - 1000 pixels, captions and credit line). DSLR cameras are preferable; examples of other photographers’ works (your “heroes” in photography) are welcome.Andrei Polikanov was born in 1961 in Moscow. He has graduated the Military Institute of Foreign Languages. For 6 years he worked as a commissioned officer at Missions in Angola. In the early 1990s worked with Anthony Suau, Christopher Morris and other best international photojournalists producing stories on the events on the former USSR territory (including wars and conflicts in Nagornyi Karabach, Chechnya, Transdnestr Republic, Abkhazia, Tadjikistan). From 1997 till 2007 worked as a photo editor for TIME Magazine, Moscow Bureau, since 2007 is the Director of Photography at the Russian Reporter Magazine, Expert Media Group. Andrey Polikanov is a member of various National and International Photo Contests (including Visa pour L’Image de Or, Press Photo Finland) and member of the Joop Swart Masterclass independent selection committee. Since 2005, he has taught numerous workshops on photojournalism in Russia and worldwide.http://www.rusrep.ru

Documentary Practice and Narrative: The Long Term Project
Teacher: George Georgiou (London, UK)

The workshop will address the issues of contemporary documentary photographic practice and approaches, taking a deeper look at the long-term project in photography. The aim is to build up an understanding of different forms of narratives and different ways of structuring work according to the final mode of presentation, be it a book, an exhibition, multimedia or magazine feature. We will discuss how ideas and concepts are crucial to the development of the documentary project, how to identify themes, motifs and issues that address and question the societies we live in, on both the local and the global level. Participants will bring completed and in progress projects so we can look and deconstruct the images and the working methodology, including taking a detailed look at the editing process. The teacher’s own and other photographers’ projects, working methods and project evolution will be used as illustrations.
Besides discussing the participants’ existing projects, everyone will identify and produce a short narrative through sequence, combination, or juxtaposition during the workshop. The work performed at ISSP will act as a starting place for identification and development of a critical perspective on the original long-term projects to be continued beyond the workshop.Requirements/technique: Each participant should bring selected project/s from their own work and be prepared to discuss their aims in the context of a group. DSLR cameras are preferable, although film is also possible, provided work in progress can be supplied for daily critiques.George Georgiou Born in London to Greek Cypriot parents, George Georgiou has been a practicing photographer for the last 20 years. For the last decade, he has photographed extensively in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Turkey, living and working in Serbia, Greece, and for five years in Istanbul. His work is focused on long term projects around identity, urbanization and the space people find themselves in when caught between communities, cultures, or ideologies. His awards include two World Press Photo prizes in 2003 and 2005, a Pictures of the Year International first prize for Istanbul Bombs in 2004 and a Nikon Press Award UK for best photo essay 2000. He has been published in most of the world’s major magazines and exhibited in a number of countries. He has carried out numerous workshops and portfolio reviews in Ukraine, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Serbia, Kosovo, Slovenia, London, Nigeria and Latvia (with ISSP) and mentored many photographers in the regions he worked. His first book, Fault Lines/Turkey/East/West, looking at the complex concept of East and West, will be released in May 2010. George Georgiou is represented by agencies Prospekt (Italy), Panos (UK) and Signatures (France).http://www.georgegeorgiou.net

Saturday, 24 April 2010

Justnya is the current Canon female photojournalist of the year. Polish photographer Justnya has been living in Georgia for 7 years and has photographed the Caucasus throughout this time and has a very impressive and extensive portfolio from the region.